


Half Remembered Sunsets

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 09:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That first time she meets Sora, when they're all clustered in that tiny hotel in Traverse Town trying to explain the keyblade- the importance of the keyblade and the keyblade master. They're trying to tell him that he has to save the multiverse, that the universe and all it's worlds is cracking apart like splintered glass and all the kid can talk about is her. Her and that other kid, Riku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half Remembered Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for faorism at my awesome ladies meme. Because the girls are awesome and I don't write about them nearly enough.

Yuffie knows Kairi through the series of complicated, jumbled stories that Sora's spewed at them at various points in time over the last few years. She knows Kairi as the girl that little, frantic fourteen year old Sora is looking for. That first time she meets Sora, when they're all clustered in that tiny hotel in Traverse Town trying to explain the keyblade- the _importance_ of the keyblade and the keyblade master. They're trying to tell him that he has to _save the multiverse_ , that the universe and all it's worlds is cracking apart like splintered glass and all the kid can talk about is _her_. Her and that other kid, Riku.  
  
She remembers thinking that the kid was worse than her, because for all she likes playing the enthusiastic kid who is a bit too fond of pointy things, she's really a responsible adult.  
  
She'd watched her world burn, unable to do anything as the people she loved were shot down around her. She remembers what Zack had looked like in those last few minutes, blood smeared at the corner of his mouth, hole in his chest gaping obscenely, Cloud and Aerith gathered around him protectively. She'd looked at them, at Aerith crouching over him, fingertips glowing green and her mouth parted in a constant chant of cures and Cloud trembling, Zack's own sword clutched in a white knuckled grip. She'd watched Zack die slowly and she'd thought _if only I'd let the heartless finish the job._  
  
But Sora-- he'd watched his own world fall. He'd watched it fall and she doesn't understand how he can't take everything more seriously now. But she does kind of understand. Remembers the way that she'd called out for her nanny weeks after they'd escaped to Traverse Town. Remembers what it's like to be six and try to cope with losing your _world_. That is the only thing that keeps her from punching him in the face when his only response to Squall's careful explanation of the apocalypse is a pained "But _where_ are they?"  
  
.  
  
Yuffie sees Sora several times after that. He drops into Traverse Town a couple months after leaving with the King's men, older and just a bit more world-weary. She's mostly pleased by the change, even if he still talks about his friends incessantly. He regales them with tales of a little redheaded girl who'd washed up on the shores of their world, of a boy who he obviously looks up to. He tells them how the mayor had taken Kairi in, how she'd grown up playing with toy swords, how she'd always playfully egged him and Riku on, how she looked in the sun- all red hair and blue eyes and carefully cheerful smiles.  
  
She thinks she's probably the only one who sees the look of faint recognition, the slightest crack in Squall's mask.  
  
.  
  
"When did you see them?" she asks Squall later, after Sora had gotten back on his ship, aimed towards a desert world called Agrabah. Squall looks at her and sighs, his fingers sweeping reverently across the shining surface of his gunblade. He looks down and says, "Not them, her."  
  
She puzzles over his response for a moment and then he's looking back up at her, memory fever-bright in his eyes. "Kairi. From before. I knew her. _We_ knew her."  
  
The words are quiet, but with them come a slew of memories. A little girl with red hair. A little girl who'd laughed and played ninjas with her in the bright orange light of Radiant Garden's sunsets. A little girl-princess with a carefree grin that Yuffie half thought she'd dreamed.  
  
She understands that look of recognition now.  
  
.  
  
Sora restores the worlds and she doesn't even know how. She just knows that Traverse Town begins to crack around them, no longer needed since the world's have come back to life. On the ride back home, she looks at the stars- watches the clear flickers of life from the gummi ship's window and wonders if home will look like what she remembered.  
  
She wonders which home Kairi will have chosen to go back to.

She isn't surprised to find Radiant Garden exactly as she remembered it. No clusters of dead buildings, no smeared blood on the cobblestones. All signs of the Heartless invasion have been erased, and the blood only exists in the minds of those who have seen it. In the gaping holes that people who have died left behind.  
  
When there's no redhead to greet them, she pretends that she isn't surprised.  
  
.  
  
They forget about Sora. They remember Kairi and Riku, and there's a void where something used to be. They remember the Heartless, and Traverse Town, but they don't remember how their own world was pulled back together.  
  
The universe flickers and jolts unsteadily, and the stars are uncomfortable with this void.  
  
Later, something snaps back into place. The universe' order is restored and the memory of Sora comes back.  
  
.  
  
Several months later, after the Heartless have made their reappearance, Sora himself comes back. His hair is a little bit blonder, like he's spent too much time in the sun. He's cockier and his voice has broken. He still talks about Kairi and Riku, and it still makes Yuffie eye Cid's collection of wrenches in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, she can make one connect with his head.  
  
He fixes their world again before they even realize it's broken and then he smiles, and goes off to search for Riku.  
  
She wonders how Kairi feels, alone on the islands. How she'd felt when she'd forgotten Sora's name. She wonders if Sora even remembers that they'd forgotten him. Somehow, she doesn't think he does, but when she opens her mouth to tell him, something stops her. A vice closes around her heart and she hears a voice in her head, _no, no, he doesn't need to know. He can't know._

She meets Namine before she meets Kairi, while Sora's off somewhere in the Pride Lands. The shadows had been attacking more ferociously, slithering past their security systems. For the first time in over a year, there are Heartless related deaths again.  
  
She's in the Bailey and really, she doesn't know how it happens. There hadn't been that many of them, and she's always careful about this kind of thing, but it ends with a warning, a shout from Squall too many feet away to reach in time and she braces herself, ready for the claws. There are already images chasing themselves across the backs of her eyelids and she hopes it'll be quick.  
  
And then there are cool, pale arms wrapped around her waist, dragging her away and something lithe and silver is tearing into the Heartless.  
  
The world falls away when Namine looks at her, and she thinks she must have breathed a "why" or maybe a "how" because beneath her palm there's an eerie silence and she _knows_ what it means when someone has no pulse.  
  
Namine looks at her, blue eyes confused and a bit helpless- _faked emotion_ , something inside of her hisses.  
  
"She cared about you, once. I think."  
  
She's falling back into a doorway of darkness before Yuffie can think to ask for clarification.  
  
.  
  
Nobodies. She wishes the worlds had just stuck with the heartless, but as always, things have to be complicated.  
  
.  
  
Sora saves the universe again.  
  
.  
  
When she finally meets Kairi, she doesn't know what to say. It's been months since she's seen Sora, months since she's heard this girl's name drop from his tongue and _she doesn't know what to say._  
  
Luckily, Kairi does.  
  
.  
  
"I think I knew you once," Kairi smiles, and really Sora doesn't do those smiles justice in his stories. Namine flickers behind her eyes and Yuffie thinks _oh_.  
  
"It was a long time ago," she says, trying to quell the panic threatening to surface. The memories surging up and trying to drown her with games of knights and princesses, of promises made in the hot summer sun with a kind of intensity that only six year olds possess.  
  
"You said you were going to marry me," Kairi giggles, rubbing the back of her neck with soft hands just starting to callous. She glances around the town square and finally points to a cluster of boxes next to the Accessory shop. "Right there," she says and Yuffie thinks, _oh god, how can she remember that_.  
  
Yuffie chuckles and starts to back away from the _princess_ of their entire _world_. She knows Kairi from Sora's stories and hazy memories of a childhood that had been taken from them too early, but _Kairi_ remembers _her_.  
  
What she wants to do is laugh it off. She wants to hide behind Squall and Aerith because the Heartless have never scared her as much as a _crush_. But Kairi's smile is like the sun. It charms the very heart of their world, and as one of the world' inhabitants, Yuffie is helpless to resist. So instead of running off, she smiles back, shy and hesitant and nothing like the Yuffie that the world knows and says, "Yeah, I guess I did."


End file.
